Daydreaming
by brushstroke
Summary: Katie Bell decides she has been reading far too many romance novels. But really, how does a girl banish those images of Oliver Wood from her mind? You know the ones...the swordbrandishing, swashbuckling, makeyoudroolalloveryourpotionsessay ones.
1. A New Broomstick

**A/N:** This is just a bit of fluff. I'm actually working on a longer Oliver/OC fic…but I've got writer's block like nothing I've seen before, and this is what's coming out. I'm not a fan of the pedophilic OW/KB fics, so they're both in their sixth year in this story. Sorry if this offends your Harry Potter sensibilities…it was necessary. So I'm anticipating five or six chapters total...we'll see how this turns out. REVIEWS ARE ALWAYS APPRECIATED. ONE YUMMY QUIDDITCH CAPTAIN TO EACH LOVELY REVIEWER!!!!!!!!! (let me know if Davies, Diggory, or Wood is more your type...though I s'pose you could always go for Flint... x_x )

****Disclaimer:** I'm sure we're all aware that Harry Potter is not mine! :D

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**Chapter One:  
_A New Broomstick

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Katie Bell practically flew from the quidditch pitch into her dormitory. When she reached her room, she flung herself wildly onto the bunk that had been her refuge for her last six years at Hogwarts. Had anyone entered the room at that exact moment, they would have encountered a damp-haired Katie quaking behind a thin scarlet curtain, eyes feverishly darting back and forth underneath eyelids squeezed tightly shut.

In short, Katie was traumatized.

A mere half hour before, she had been joyfully zooming over the pitch on her new broomstick, a belated birthday present from her brother in Ireland. Although it was nowhere near the quality of Harry's broom, her new Nimbus was still a top-of-the-line model--the envy of the entire Gryffindor quidditch team. Excepting Harry, of course.

But that was beside the point. Her broom had been so much the envy of her fellow teammates that their captain Oliver Wood had even called a special practice so that everyone could admire--sorry, learn to work with--the new broom.

Upon reaching this last point, the trembling Katie clutched the headboard of her bed tightly in one tense hand.

Oliver Wood.

Oliver bloody Wood.

Katie took a deep breath and steeled herself for memories of the last fifteen minutes. How could so many things suddenly go awry in only one quarter of an hour? It didn't seem possible.

So there she had been. Skipping innocently to the locker room, merrily singing snippets of her favorite showtunes as she wound her way through various rows of lockers, headed towards the showers. Well, skipping could be an exaggeration. And it wasn't precisely singing, to be perfectly accurate. More like humming. Anyway.

She had returned from the pitch a few minutes later than everyone else--all she had wanted was a few extra moments in bliss with her new broom! That was it! No more, no less. Just the broom. Only some--gah! Moving on.

Because of the delay, the rest of the team had exited the locker room by the time her shower had finished. She wrapped a fluffy towel around herself and began to wring out her saturated hair. She had only just begun this drying ritual when she heard her captain's voice calling seductively from the other end of the row of showers.

If she was smart, she would have run as fast as she could in the other direction. Or maybe even jumped on her broom and--Katie sighed from her spot on her bed and resolved to stop straying from what had actually taken place. She needed to sort this out, not sit shaking in bed, dithering over what she should have done. It was just a dumb accident, anyway. Bloody fucking Wood.

Well, Katie had not turn tail and run as she should have. In true Katie fashion, she had merely smirked and crept closer to the source of the disturbance.

Giving up on seduction, Oliver finally bellowed, "Lucy? Luce! I know you're in here!"

Upon hearing the name "Lucy," Katie had made up her mind. She had a vague idea of what Oliver had planned--perhaps a steamy run-in with his latest girlfriend? Perhaps a bit more than steamy?

Well, no one could really tell, reasoned Katie. Either way, she had thought evilly, she'd give him the scare of his life thus far, and possibly teach him to save his little encounters for a broom closet in a deserted corridor, and not Katie's sanctuary. Who was he to disturb her, Katie Bell, in the midst of her after-practice cleansing? Ha!

Ah, Katie, she groaned at herself. What a mistake.

Snickering to herself, Katie had finally come upon the last shower. Tightening the towel around her middle, she leapt into the small enclosure.

There Oliver had stood, dripping wet from the very top of his drenched brown hair to the bottomest bottom of his glistening feet. Not that his toes or ankles had elicited much of a reaction from Katie. No, she reflected, she had never been much of a fetishist. Though if she had been, she was sure that Oliver's feet would have done it for her. Nice, toned calves, too. And everything else. Yes, it was definitely the rest of him that had sealed her fate.

All plans forgotten, Katie's eyes had bulged somewhat unattractively out of her head. She was positive that a bit of saliva even eeked its way out of her mouth. In summary, she lost any control over herself that she might once have possessed.

Her shocked gaze had unbashfully devoured every single inch of his dripping body. Then something in her brain had finally kicked into gear.

At which point she had emitted some sort of gasping, muffled scream, taken in Oliver's frozen features, somehow managed to produce a sort of alien gargling noise, and then promptly shut her eyes. so tightly that they began tearing up. It was then that she swore never to open her eyes again for as long as she lived. Because the resulting image burned into the back of her eyelids, well...

"Well--g-get a fucking t-towel, you moronic, oversized idiot!" she had stuttered. Brilliant save, Katie, she mused bitterly.

Oliver had mutely scrambled for some scrap of fabric to cover himself. If she had dared to reopen her eyes, Katie would have found that in his panic, Oliver had turned a particularly unlovely shade of eggplant. Though seeing his own mortification might have spared her own, it was not to be.

By this time, the stalled gears in Katie's mind had groaned protestingly back into life, and commenced searching desperately for a different way out of this embarrassment. In her desperation, she had foolishly fumbled at the coattails of her original plan. Or tried to, at least.

"I--I..." was all she the furthest that she managed. Realizing her loss for words, she nervously wrung her hands, forgetting all about the towel that was keeping _her_ decent. And then it slipped.

Bloody, bloody hell, Katie's shell-shocked mind had uttered. She made a wild grab at the fallen towel. And then she had run, shrieking at the top of her lungs.

Something about a dead fish, she now recalled in mounting horror. How would Oliver possibly believe that it was the death of her Great-Grandma Beatrice's pet clownfish that had spurred her to such depths of insanity?

What in HELL' S NAME had she been_ thinking_???????

So here she found herself. Quivering with mortal embarrassment. And the tiniest bit of lust. But mostly just embarrassment.

Bloody sodding Wood.

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**A/N: **Well, what do you think? Remember that it's supposed to be fluffy! I just hope it's not total crap. Let me know, otherwise nothing gets fixed! I thrive on feedback! And remember: any quidditch captain of your choice. I don't care if it ends up being Marcus Flint that you're after--JUST REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway...ta! Next chapter up soon.


	2. A Treasure Chest

**A/N****: This is just a bit of a filler chapter, as I am recovering from a near-fatal bout of writer's block... hope it's not total rubbish...**

**Disclaimer****: ****Is this really necessary? Can I safely assume that we all know that none of these characters are of my own invention? If not--well, I don't know, really.**

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Chapter Two: **

_**A Treasure Chest**_

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A solid thirty minutes later, Oliver still stood, no longer dripping-wet, in the middle of his shower, blinking confusedly at the inexplicably interesting wall in front of him. What the bloody hell had just transpired? Why was Katie so concerned about a dying clownfish? And Merlin's nightcap, why wasn't he wearing any clothes?

Comprehension slowly began to dawn on Oliver. He was, he now realized, standing quite naked in the middle of his shower. And his Chaser had just ogled anything he might've liked to keep hidden from the majority of Hogwarts. Then, he seemed to have blurred memories of said Chaser losing her own towel as she determinedly blundered further into the entire mess.

And what a mess it was. Oliver grimaced horribly as he felt his face turn that particular shade of mauve that does not fade until the sufferer has been sufficiently mortified.

Looking toward the locker room exit, he resigned himself to the reality that he could do precisely nothing to reverse the circumstances. Clinging to one last gleam of hope, he rationalized that Katie would be very unlikely to explain to anyone that she had just seen him in all his naked glory as he had very recently done the same to her. As he pulled on his school robes, Oliver told himself that if she didn't grasp that concept immediately, he was sure that only a very minor amount of blackmail would be necessary to drive the point home.

With such desperate measures as his last links to a decent reputation, Oliver violently banged open the door to the locker room and began to trudge slowly back toward the castle (and very possibly his impending doom).

At the very same moment that her captain was anticipating his social death, Katie had begun to calm herself down. Hyperventilation, as she had discovered, was only useful if one intended to become very faint very quickly. Searching wildly around her dormitory for something to distract her from her current distressed state, her eyes landed on the extra trunk she always brought to Hogwarts.

Her lips curved up into a slow smile. Her only _slightly_ demented gaze seemed to devour every inch of the plain-looking thing. Its contents had not failed her once during her time at Hogwarts. Her recommended cure for O.W.L. fever? The very same trunk—and what filled it, of course. It was actually because she had so intelligently prepared for her upcoming N.E.W.T.'s that her stash had been restocked so recently. Which was altogether fortunate, because Katie could not imagine a situation, including the aforementioned nastily exhausting tests, that more required that very trunk.

Katie leapt maniacally off her bed and sprawled herself across the cold floor in front of her treasure. Prizing the trunk open, she took in the sight, revelling in satisfaction of the very deepest sort. Hesitantly, reverently, she reached past crisp new paperbacks into the darkest depths of her secret box, pulling out a yellowing, creased, and obviously well-loved book. The cover of the thing might be very slowly detaching itself from the binding, but Katie could not care less (it might actually prove easier to read the book in public if the cover fell off entirely, come to think of it. There is, after all, a certain level of self-consciousness that accompanies the reading of an obvious bodice-ripper in the middle of the common room…). The book was worth twenty times its weight in gold. It was, to put it simply, the best damn romance novel that she had ever chanced across in her four years of experienced romance-novel literacy. Granted thirteen may be young for some, but she had always been a very curious child…okay, so she was a perverted little git when she had first entered puberty. Thankfully, she thought as she eyed the book with pleasure, she had quite grown out of the phase.

Even so, she thought gleefully, it was practically guaranteed to drive any thoughts out of her overworked brain, save perhaps those of the manly cologne; the strong, glistening, rippling muscles; the deep baritone voice, complete with sexy, make-your-knees-buckle Latin accent; the flawless tango dancing technique; and quite obviously the incomparable bedroom skills of a certain droolworthy Rafael Valdés.

Katie slammed the trunk shut once more and pranced down to the common room, quickly curling up in her favorite armchair (the particularly comfy one located second-closest to the fire) and delicately opening the book to the first chapter. She smirked as she lapsed into her favorite daydream—her heartbeat fluttered as she danced the night away with a mysterious Spanish gentleman, her breath hitched as he brushed her hand to his exoticly attractive lips, her face flushed with pleasure as his lips drifted hotly over her smooth neck…

She was very abruptly brought back the present as the portrait hole swung wildly open and clanged shut with a very rare fervor. Katie would normally have laughed at the animalistic look on her Quidditch captain's face as he stumbled into the room, but her much-needed fantasy had just been broken off at a very critical point, and besides, that particular animalistic look was exactly what she had meant to escape by drifting off into that lovely, lovely dream… Yes, she decided belatedly, it would have been best just to stay in her dormitory. No untimely interruptions up there.

"Bell!" Oliver's eyes bulged slightly at the sight of Katie sitting so composedly on an overstuffed armchair.

"Yes?" She questioned meekly. Perhaps if she pretended it never happened--

"Not a word, Bell. Not one word." Or, perhaps not, Katie amended.

With that, Oliver strode purposefully toward the 7th year boys' dormitories.

Katie gazed sadly at the cover of her book. Perhaps the cure-all was not so potent as she had once believed. A mere three and one quarter seconds later, Katie shook her head and smiled as she realized that she should never underestimate the power of Rafael.

It does not take much to become absorbed in such a steamy romance as that. Katie spent the rest of the night oblivious to her year-mates' dubious glances toward the dilapidated cover of her book. One may safely assume that bodice-rippers received the ever-so-cultured nickname from the discreet nature of their front-cover illustrations.

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A/N:** Review, dears!


	3. The Trouble with Oliver

**A/N: All of you are so amazing. I know this is only my third chapter, but I want to thank everyone for their (your) support on the last two. So…thanks! That in order, I also want to say that yes, this is a suckish chapter, but I've had really bad writer's block, and this is about the third time I've tried this same little chapter. And it's the best. I have better things planned for the next few.**

**Disclaimer****: Is this really necessary? Can I safely assume that we all know that none of these characters are of my own invention? If not--well, I don't know, really.**

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**Chapter Three:**

_**The Trouble with Oliver**_

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That went very well, Oliver congratulated himself as he entered his dormitory. The girl looked so bloody mortified that she wouldn't dare speak to him again at all, let alone mention their happy little run-in after practice.

Actually, he reflected, that might be for the best. He'd never been quite sure of himself around Katie. Something about her scatterbrained personality was just a little off-setting to him. He'd never been really sure why, but he always felt…naked…in her presence. Absolutely no pun intended. The point was that he felt bare, like she could see every little thing he was thinking and would judge him for it. Unsettling.

Why did he care so much about what Katie thought of what she found in him?

Come to think of it, what _did _Katie think of what she found? What did she think of Lucy? Of the fact that he was dallying, for lack of a better word, with that sort of person of the opposite sex? He was certain that Katie would not approve of Lucy one bit. Not an iota.

Wait. Why was Katie reading books with half-naked men on the front cover? Oliver smirked. Naughty girl. He'd ask her about that tomorrow. After perusing the many implications of this observation, his grin faltered. Would she speak to him tomorrow?

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At exactly 3:24 that morning, Oliver found himself in a new dilemma. Of course, one can imagine what sort of dilemma this is when faced with facts as follows:

1. Oliver had, in fact, had a very trying day

2. He had been rendered the unfortunate victim to a series of visuals taken from the day, which seemed to be (also unfortunately) stuck in an irreversible loop

3. As the honorable quidditch captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team, it was quite inappropriate to be seeing such images of his own chaser

4. His mind was quite unaware of this, but certain portions of his body were rather visibly not cooperating

As for the seriousness of this problem, well, let us merely say that one such occurrence was not a terrible thing. But to find oneself kept awake at 3:24 in the morning due to the fear of a fourth, well, it was just plain disturbing.

Oliver crawled on all fours out of the dormitory, making for the kitchens, a cup of cocoa, and perhaps a dose of sanity.

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Katie was awakened by a curious shuffling noise. Something hard shortly knocked into the solid oak coffee table in front of her, causing a dull thud and a muffled acknowledgement of Merlin's own mother.

Katie peered blearily into the darkness. "Whozzat?" she managed to croak.

"Eh? Oh, bugger…" came the mysterious voice. "Lumos!" A wand lit up the blackness of the common room. "Katie?" Oliver glared darkly back at her.

"Oh, it's just you. Well, carry on, erm, whatever it was that you were doing." Katie blundered awkwardly.

Oliver looked slightly abashed at this, and the glare fell off his face. "Ah, you see, I was just—er—looking for my glasses. Dropped them earlier today."

Katie was too busy staring dents into the floor to notice any of the gaping loopholes in this response. Oliver? Glasses? One might, well, except Katie, that is, find that the phrase most appropriate for a rebuttal is this: "as if." However, Katie just kept up burning holes in the floor with her gaze mumbling only a disconnected, "o-oh."

Oliver, panicking at this exceptionally eloquent utterance, quickly sought to redirect her supposed train of thought. "Papaya smoothies!" he shouted.

"What's that, Oliver?" she asked, shocked out of her stupor.

"Er…yeah. Papaya smoothies. I like to drink them. I like papayas. And mangos. Do you want one?"

"A mango?" Katie found herself bewildered.

"No, a papaya smoothie. Fred showed me how to get into the kitchens a few years back. How a first year figured it out is a bit beyond me—tickle the pear, my arse—but then, it IS Fred. So, smoothie?"

"Come again?"

"Smoothie?"

"Oh. All right, then. Lead the way, Lewis. Or do you prefer Clark?"

It was Oliver's turn don a very lost expression.

"My aunt lived in America."

Oliver nodded as if this explained a great many things. Moving out of his uncomfortable crouch, he stood and walked stiffly toward the portrait hole. Katie tripped off her armchair and jogged after him.

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The uncomfortable silence of their journey was broken finally when they reached the kitchens. Oliver's face contorted in mild embarrassment as he extended one long finger to tickle the pear-ish portion of a luscious still-life. "Damn fruit," he growled softly. Katie merely giggled (and was promptly greeted with more self-disgust than she was accustomed to coping with on an average day).

Oliver glanced sideway at his companion as he stepped into the kitchens. hy did everything have to be so bleeding awkward since that incident in the locker room? He admitted that yes, it is typically awkward to walk in on one's captain while he was lying in wait for...er, standing nakedly in wait for...his (what would one call Lucy? His girlfriend? His current girl? His current toy?) erm, Lucy. And it, of course, was bound to become even more awkward when one's towel just fell right off, and the captain just stood and ogled everything one had just exposed.

Why was he thinking from Katie's point of view? It was disturbing. It was, as he'd thought before, bleeding awkward for _him! _And here he stood, desperately fighting to keep his mind, eyes, hands, tongue, and other unmentionable body parts off of the delightfully disheveled state of her. She just looked so nicely disheveled...it was quite the struggle to fight back those dreams and memories...it was just that it was Katie! Katie Bell! Why was he having these problems?! And Merlin above, WHY was Katie bending over in that way? It was...nice.

Bad Oliver!

No!

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**A/N:** Reviews make me smile! :D


	4. Like Mature Adults

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**A/N:**** Yeesh, do I take a long time to get these chapters up, or what? Anyway, as usual, I'm really sorry about the wait. I'd blame exams (true) and my computer crashing (…less true…), but we all know it's probably crap. Hopefully this one's a little longer, though. So…here's the chapter!**

**Disclaimer:**** Been there, done that. Not mine, yadda yadda, I am slime on the bottom of JKR's least favorite pair of galoshes, yadda yadda…**

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**Chapter 4:**

_**Like Mature Adults**_

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As the bowl of fruit opened forward, Katie looked around her in utter amazement. The sheer number of house elves was overwhelming. She felt a sudden compulsion to bend over and pet one—no, wait, she _was_ bending over and petting one. She was actually eliciting a very strange sense of satisfaction from this until she heard the elf snarling at her.

Oliver looked on in shocked bemusement as the tiny elf launched itself at her knees. "Don't—not—aargh!" came a smothered shriek as the elf bowled her over.

As the elf began shimmying violently up toward her face, Katie finally realized that she had rather offended him by petting him like a dog.

"Oh, Merlin's mother!" she blurted.

Oliver stared. Had she not already realized that she'd been tackled by a small creature in a pillowcase?

"I'm really sorry—what's your name?"

"Mosie's name is Mosie, miss." Mosie blinked, startled at the odd interruption.

"Ah," Katie breathed, staring at the large house elf eyes hovering over her face (yes, the ones that had five seconds ago looked like they wanted to string her up on a clothesline and beat her senseless). "Mosie, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean it. I'm just really sleepy, is all. I'd been having this dream about my dog, you see—"

Oliver took the opportunity to haul the elf off of Katie. Tilting her head back to peer at him, Mosie seemed to realize that she had been trying to maul a student. Her eyes filled with horror. She turned quickly to beseech Katie (who was still lying stunned on the floor). "Mosie is sorry, miss! She doesn't know what she can have been thinking! And Miss shouldn't worry about…" she struggled for a word, "…_stroking_ Mosie. Mosie just was not expecting it…" she trailed off awkwardly.

"Er, yeah," Katie was almost positive that she hit her head on something. Something was _throbbing_…

Oliver shifted his feet and surveyed the kitchens. Clearing his throat, he asked Mosie, "Could we, erm, maybe have a smoothie?"

Mosie brightened considerably. "Of course! Anything sir and miss would like!"

"Did you say papaya or mango, Oliver?" Katie smiled goofily at the ceiling. Oliver watched her, worried.

"Papaya? Please?" he asked Mosie unsurely.

"Of course!" she shuffled off quickly. Other house elves who'd been watching the spectacle hurried off, pretending they hadn't stared quite so obviously at the entire thing.

As Oliver continued to observe Katie (by now she had begun to convulse strangely), he pondered the possible after-hours punishments. Should he take her to the hospital wing at four in the morning? Eyeing the jerking movements her torso was making, he came to the conclusion that it would probably be worth a few nights of detention if it meant that his chaser was still in primo working order.

When Katie snorted, he finally realized that she wasn't actually seizing on the floor in front of him. No, she was laughing.

Katie had a strange laugh, he decided.

Her laugh faded to something slightly more socially-appropriate. "I was just attacked by a house elf," she gasped.

"You were petting a house elf. _Stroking_ it, in fact," he uttered blankly.

"I know!" She continued laughing madly. "What a fantastic fucking day! First, I read a letter from my Auntie Floe, and she told me that my cousin got a coin stuck in his nose…something about a dare, I'm not really sure…but all the same, I didn't really need to know. Then I had a lovely quidditch practice, may my new broomstick live forever and ever. _Then_ I heard you in the shower going, 'Lucy, Lucy!'" Katie cackled as Oliver's face contorted. _"Then_, you were naked, you sexy thang!_" _Oliver began inching toward the exit. "_And then, _somehow, I was naked!" Katie sat up abruptly, grinning at nothing Oliver could comprehend. "_And now,"_ she paused dramatically, "_I have been attacked by a house elf named _Mosie_."_

Oliver was nearly positive that she'd lost her mind. He'd take her to the hospital wing another time. Right now, he was just scared. He dived for the still-open still-life.

In a sudden, unforeseen move, Mosie appeared right in front of his escape with two glasses of something orange.

"Here is Sir's smoothie." His face crumpled. Another time, then.

Mosie handed the other smoothie to Katie, who had picked herself up off the floor. Finally.

Mosie disappeared, and Katie and Oliver sipped papaya in silence.

"So…" Oliver began after a few minutes.

Katie looked up, blushing. "Erm, sorry about that little speech, Ollie. Just got a bit overwhelmed, you know? And probably a bit concussed, too, now that I think about it…"

"No problem," he replied, relieved that she seemed to have retained her mental faculties.

"Anyway, about that thing in the locker room earlier— "

He interrupted. "I seriously think it might be better if we just forget about it. Be the mature adults that we are." _Because it's mature to salivate over memories of what your teammate looks like under her PJ's. Very mature to remember every detail of the way the water had dripped from her very wet hair down, down, gliding smoothly over every inch of damp, creamy skin that his hands wished to cover… Snap out of it, Oliver! Mature adults!_

Katie looked relieved. "Me too."

_Why was he so disappointed, damnit!?_

"Good." They looked at each other. Oliver began to detect an itch behind his left ear. Katie fiddled nervously with her smoothie straw.

"Anyway." Katie was first to break the silence this time. Oliver's itch faded. "This is a really excellent smoothie, Ol."

And the phantom itch returned. "Yeah, erm…" he sought desperately for a way to continue the conversation. "House elves. You know."

Katie looked down to watch her sockless feet begin to dance nervously. Her left ankle suddenly kicked up behind her right, rubbing the back of her leg oddly. She felt all of four years old.

Oliver continued to wrack his mind for possible conversation starters. House elves? No. Feet? …creepy. Well, crap. He had to say _something_. He did his best to fix a confident smirk on his face. Like that ever really worked.

"So." He stated brightly. _Good lead-in. Really expert, Ollie. Now, go for the gold! _"I have a bit of a business proposition for you, my dear chaser."

"What's that, Oliver?" Katie asked curiously. Internally, she celebrated. _Thank Merlin above her feet had stopped._

"Well, I've been thinking," he started again. "Here's this huge kitchen, right?"

She nodded blankly. The kitchens really were quite obvious when one was standing in the middle of them.

"And the food's really good. Due to the, um, house elves."

"Yes."

"Well, nobody really knows how to get inside them, do they? Apart from, you know. Fred and George."

"I know this, Oliver."

His neck began turning an unbecoming, splotchy red. There was no one who was quite so talented at making him feel stupid and discomfited as Katie Bell. "I'm getting to it!" he defended.

Katie was quickly regaining her confidence. She cocked an eyebrow.

The white splotches on his neck filled in with red, turning the whole thing a very vibrant shade of scarlet. Then, he was hit with a sudden stroke of absolute brilliance. He was, well, brilliant!

"Well, we could make a lot of money on this stuff! It's worth its weight in gold! Don't you see? Since no one can get to it themselves, we can get it from the house elves, bring it back to the tower at night, when no one's around, and then sell it to the hungry rulebreakers of the school! For very cheap prices, of course."

"Why Oliver, you sly dog…"

"It's brilliant!" He cracked his most charming smile and pulled her into a waltzing position. "Shall we?"

"Of course, darling." She tried on a sophisticated accent. "Wait. I don't waltz."

"Ah. May I suggest the tango?"

"Much better." They took long strides around the room, each with one arm pointed stiffly out in the direction they moved and with their chins held high.

Katie couldn't help it. Whenever they switched directions, their heads would turn. And since she was just a bit shorter than Oliver, being a girl, her nose couldn't help but brush against his neck. And when she was that close, she really couldn't help but smell him. Not in a strange stalker way, but just when she breathed…he smelled really, really good. Kind of the way she imagined Rafael would smell. Although Rafael would probably be a better dancer. Better dancer or not, though, Katie was having trouble imagining that his hands would be wreaking as much havoc on her as Oliver's currently were. They easily burned through her thin cotton sleeping tank. The heat seared through her, almost making her wish…but no. This was Oliver.

Oliver himself was having a few issues. Considering the reason he was even up at that time in the morning, his proximity to Katie's scantily clad body was probably not the most prudent thing in the world. He felt his breathing coming a little harder.

Katie tripped on a misplaced mop, and she stumbled out of Oliver's arms. The haze in his mind cleared, and he was able to breathe.

"Shall we continue our dance another time, milady? Perhaps with better lighting?"

Katie smiled, already missing his arms. How strange. "Certainly, milord. Shall we for now gather our materials, and proceed to Gryffindor Tower?"

"We shall." They continued such idle banter for another few minutes, after ordering as many items of food as they felt they could carry.

When she finally crawled into bed (after stuffing said items of food under the bottom of it—properly packaged, of course), Katie mulled over the night's events. With a sleepy smile, she decided two things. First, the day hadn't turned out so badly after all. Even considering the very detailed recounting of her cousin's unfortunate nasal incident. And second…Oliver Wood had very manly hands.

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**A/N:**** How's that for a chapter? Review, lovelies!**

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	5. Wildwomen and Wonderland

**And Finally...The Long Awaited Chapter 5!**

_**Wildwomen and Wonderland

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The next day found Katie and Oliver huddled together at the Gryffindor table over lunch between classes. Katie leaned over the table and pointed excitedly at something under her hands.

"But that's it, Ollie! That's how we'll manage this whole smuggling business!" Her eyes gleamed brightly with intrigue, and Oliver couldn't help but stare at her for a second, wondering how the hell he'd gotten himself into this nonsense with a wildwoman like Katie Bell. Through the haze of sleep deprivation, he vaguely recalled a tango around the kitchens, and an exhausted (and still slightly loopy) agreement to sell hard-to-access food items to the poor, hungry students of Hogwarts. Katie had been calling it 'Project: Swindle the Masses as They Prowl the Castle in Search of a Midnight Snack.' Or, PSMTPCSMS. Oliver thought they were stupid—both the project and the acronym, if you could call it that. _How does one even pronounce that? And more importantly, how could this have come out of my brain?!_ Granted, he'd been distracted by various undesirable and unaccountable thoughts at the time, but those were no excuse for this crisis of sanity.

Flummoxed by her enthusiasm, he grabbed her hand, forcing it back down onto the table. "Katie," he whispered, eyes sweeping the Hall, "Maybe….maybe this was a bad idea. We can't just—"

Her eyes narrowed. "Are you backing out on me, Oliver Wood?" She pried Oliver's hand off hers and wagged a slim finger in his face. Katie was sure she had gone insane. She, even more than Oliver, was absolutely sure that this was the worst idea ever to have struck at Hogwarts since hiring Filch, but she couldn't let it go. Glaring falsely into Oliver's face, she decided it may have had something to do with the man himself. Somehow, despite having experienced the worst embarrassment of her life at his hands yesterday, something about the idea of spending so much time with Oliver—at night, by themselves, wrapped in delinquency and the presence of many desserts with whipped cream—was strangely alluring. Not that she wanted anything to do with Oliver, of course. It was the whipped cream and infraction of rules that called to her. _Of course._

"N-no! I'm not backing out! I'm just saying, you know, that maybe this wasn't a good plan! We can't just—"

"Yes. We can," she said firmly, lifting her fork menacingly.

"Um. Okay." Oliver kept both eyes on the utensil as he silently finished his own lunch.

…

At the far side of the room, another small group of Gryffindors was spending lunch in close observation of Katie and Oliver. The Weasley twins, Alicia Spinnet, and Angelina Johnson all scrutinized the pair and did their best to make sense of the situation.

"Well, I don't know about Oliver, but Katie's been acting odd since yesterday," Alicia put forth. "She was fine at practice, and then she came sprinting back to the dorms like You-Know-Who had mailed her a Howler. Face bright red, hair dripping wet, and no shoes!"

"Right!" Angelina agreed. "And she went straight for the Trunk—haven't seen her do that since OWL time."

The Weasleys raised their eyebrows in sync. "The trunk?" they chorused.

"The Trunk." Angelina repeated. "_The_ Trunk."

"Oh." Alicia at least appeared to understand. "Yeah, I saw her reading one of those blasted things in the common room last night. Not a care in the world. You'd think Fabio would have grown old on her by now…or that she'd at least develop some self-awareness and not expose all of Gryffindor to his chest hair whenever she's feeling a bit off."

"Naugh Fabee," Angelina remonstrated through a mouthful of potato. The other three shot her disgusted looks. She swallowed. "Sorry. Not Fabio. He's blond."

"Yeeeees," George supplied awkwardly. "So Katie reads trash when she feels stressed?"

"So it would seem, my uglier half," Fred agreed blithely. "Although we can all agree that that's a fair bit of juicy gossip, all it really tells us is that she _was_ feeling a bit off, which we already knew. The question remains—_why?_"

All four heads turned slowly to watch Katie waving a fork in Oliver's disgruntled face.

"She's lost it," Alicia sighed.

The others agreed.

Suddenly, Fred's face lit up with mischief. "Ah."

George shot his twin a knowing look. "No."

"What else could it be?" Fred challenged.

"Of all things, Freddy, that would not be it. That stick-up-the-arse Captain and our Bell? No."

Angelina and Alicia looked on in utter confusion.

"If you're suggesting that there's a—a _thing_ between Ollie and Katie," Angelina started in repulsion, "you're begging for a beating."

George's face twisted oddly. "How do you come up with these things, Ange? In what world could that happen?"

Fred nodded quickly. "Not this world. Possibly in Wonderland, but I haven't spotted any rabbit holes big enough to fit Oliver's head through."

Angelina looked comforted by this statement, but Alicia glanced at the odd pair again with a thoughtful look on her face. Something was up.

…

Having been staring at her fork for so long, Oliver was beginning to grow dizzy. The fork followed the same pattern of use every time she used it. She gripped it in graceful, white fingers and unpolished nails, stabbed violently at whatever unfortunate floret of broccoli she happened to choose for her next bite, slowly lifted the food to her mouth, opened a pair of moist pink lips, shoveled the food roughly inside onto an awaiting pink tongue, and then delicately closed her lips around the fork, sliding it arrestingly back out for another bite.

Her table etiquette was positively horrid, Oliver had observed, but at the same time, utterly entrancing. Never before had he wished to trade places with a fork, but the lucky damn thing, and her lips—!

And Katie had caught him staring. _No, Oliver. Don't be a lech._ And there went her tongue, wrapping so flexibly around another enviable vegetable. _Why is she torturing me?!_

Katie felt mildly insulted. She knew her manners weren't impeccable, but Oliver didn't have to stare at her in such apparent fascination, did he? She wasn't a monkey in a zoo, no matter how much she ate like one. _Whatever. He can stare all he likes, as long as he follows through with the plan. Yes, Ollie, I'll be seeing you tonight_. And her stomach fluttered. _Damn broccoli_.

* * *

**A/N:** Spare me! I grovel at your feet for mercy. It's been awfully long since I've updated, but the story's not dead yet! I just hope you haven't lost interest! I've got more time on my hands right now than I know what to do with, so look out for an update or three coming up soon! As always, I promise cyber-cookies to all lovely reviewers!


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